We hate to say we told you so - but we did. This was entirely predictable. According to SPIEGEL - Germans are increasingly "disillusioned" with President Obama:

In a new global survey ﻿released on Wednesday, approval of President Barack Obama's policies has declined significantly since he first took office. Overall confidence in Obama and attitudes towards the US have slipped modestly as a consequence. By several measures some of the greatest slippage has occurred in Germany, especially with regard to America's image and Obama's foreign policies. After more than three years in office, Germans are disappointed in the US president's unilateralism; his use of force, particularly drone strikes; his inaction with regard to the Israeli-Palestinian situation and his lack of effort in curbing climate change.

Analysis: The initial euphoria of an Obama victory and Republican defeat will lead some to predict a bold new era of happiness in transatlantic relations. These predictions will gradually be worn to a cool realism/cynicism by geopolitical realities which will inevitably manifest themselves through differences over trade, the use of force in Pakistan, Afghanistan and the Middle East, the unwillingness of even the Democrats to go along with Kyoto, etc. Obama may remain quite popular as a personality in the German media. The Republicans - despite their reduced role - will continue to act as foils and receive blame for all that goes wrong. The refrain that what Bush has broken will take time to fix may well grow to become a reflexive defense for some time to come among those who insist on clinging to their own initial euphoria.

But at least Obama is convincing Germans that he is making progress in transforming the American economy into a more socially-just copy of the German economy. According to the SPIEGEL piece:

"Germans also don't see America as an economic superpower. In 2008, only 30 percent of Germans named China as the world's leading economic player. Now 62 percent do, while only 13 percent say the U.S. plays that role. No other Europeans judge American economic prowess so harshly."

But it's really too bad that Germans still don't love America now that Bush is gone - we thought that his departure would end all anti-American feeling. All there is left to say is...